We love variety in our lives. And one of the ways we express that desire for diversification is in our everyday use of language.

One of the reasons I cringe when I hear the overuse of “four letter words” is that it’s such a lazy way of speaking. You need only a miniscule vocabulary to use the F-bomb as a verb, adjective, adverb and noun in every sentence. We English-speakers have an incredibly rich language open to us to explore and use. So let’s use it!

We use different words to mean similar things, but think about the words “pretty” and “beautiful” – both mean someone or something is attractive or pleasing to the eye. But they are different degrees of what we are trying to express, and usually beautiful is used for something of a higher degree.

It’s always subjective, of course, as is any expression of our thoughts via the clumsy use of language to define the indefinable and try to share what we experience in a way that others can get a picture of it in their own mind.

Back to Gratitude and Appreciation – are they completely the same? Think about it for a moment. All of us have our own reaction internally to different words, depending on how they were used in our family growing up, or in school and among friends and people who influenced our thinking.

Every word in our language is actually a vibrational use of speech that sets up a reaction in the person or persons who are hearing or reading that word and the complex construction of paragraphs, essays and books. Effective speakers and writers use language to paint pictures for their audience, but there is no way to resonate the same with every single person, because of our individuality and our own experiences with certain words.

If you have the practice of writing a daily Gratitude List, which is something I often recommend to my readers and in my coaching courses, you know that being grateful for something is also a way of saying that you appreciate having it in your life.

When we take gratitude further, we can generate the feeling in the present for what we want to magnetize to us from out of the “unseen” picture of it in our mind and into the physical so we can experience that new job or relationship or vacation.

But for many of us, if you grew up being scolded that you neglected to thank someone for a gift you hate, and being forced to say you are grateful for it, then the word “gratitude” can set up an invisible sense of dismay and anger inside. Perhaps even a big resentment! That energy will negate the good that you are trying to create with your Gratitude List.

If you sometimes have that feeling of resentment at the idea of “having to” be grateful when there are so many things going on in your life that you feel upset or unhappy about, try this…

Switch to the word “appreciate.” Here’s why:

When we shift into a word that resonates more happily with us, we can use it like a stepstool to reach that higher vibration where our results are waiting for us to catch up. Think about it a moment. In saying “I am grateful for…” we may unintentionally set up an image of someone else giving us something as if we are a lower sort of being, gifted with it and having to say thanks.

But when we say “I appreciate…” we may feel more empowered. We can look around us and say very easily, with no resistance, “I appreciate how pretty that flower is… I appreciate that I have clothes to wear and food to eat…”

And in that state of appreciation, we are feeling less resistance and doubt about deserving all the things on our vision or wish list…and we allow those wonderful outcomes to come to us.

Play around with the words you use to build your consistently higher vibration of happiness. You may discover that simply plucking a different word out of the vast dictionary of the English language will be the simple key to manifesting your desires.

When we turn our attention toward finding things and situations to “appreciate” in our lives, it uplifts us – we not only feel better about ourselves and our day, but we begin automatically attracting into our experience even more things to appreciate!

As Wayne Dyer put it: “What we appreciate appreciates.”

When money appreciates, it gains interest.

When we appreciate life, those things we are happy about multiply.

Start now…

I appreciate that no matter how my day is going, I can start over by changing my attitude to a more positive and hopeful outlook.

I appreciate that I always have second chances in any situation.

I appreciate that I am here at this time in history for a purpose.

I appreciate that I can help others smile.

Smile, and appreciate your ability to do so!

When we learn to reverse some of our old thinking habits that we learned in childhood from others who were taught the old way of reacting to live instead of creating what we want, then we truly have the power of manifesting our desires.

We manifest all the time—whatever goes on in our lives is something we vibrationally had a part of, no matter how awful it appears. Does that feel discouraging or too preposterous to believe?

What it means, though, is that we are already very high level manifestors!

You don’t have to “learn” how to create things on this planet. You’re already doing it all day long—but when we do it without realizing we are even doing it, then we’re acting in a haphazard way.

Try appreciating everyone around you. Today, find something to like about each person you encounter. Begin each day feeling more appreciative, and yes, grateful, for the incredible opportunities to create more joy in the world, and to be a part of progress for humanity.

Have you ever thought about what everything in the universe is made out of? It’s energy! All of us are vibrating energy beings, and we, along with everything else we can perceive, are vibrating at different frequencies, which are then interpreted by our senses. We know that we can’t see a radio frequency with our everyday sight, but we can perceive it with our ears.

The importance of understanding the basics of energy—without the need to get into quantum mechanics or even a beginner’s course in radio frequencies—is that it relates to the results we get in life.

The following statement has been attributed to Albert Einstein: “Everything is energy and that’s all there is to it. Match the frequency of the reality you want and you cannot help but get that reality. It can be no other way. This is not philosophy. This is physics.”

When he says that we need to “match” the frequency of what we want, and then we’ll get it, what he’s talking about is becoming in harmony with our desires. Let’s say you want to write a book. If you keep that thought in the realm of a wish, or you just talk about it all the time to your friends but you never actually write a word (or maybe a few notes), you might upset with yourself that you didn’t complete a book but that result wouldn’t surprise you.

In other areas of our lives, however, we tend to overlook the connection between the energy or “feeling” we are emitting, and the energy of what we want. We figure it’s bad luck that we never attract a guy who treats us well, or it’s bad luck we get passed over for a promotion at work time and again. But if that is a pattern you recognize in your own life, take a look at what you might be doing wrong as far as matching frequencies. If you want a soulmate in your life, start matching the energy that person would emit: caring, compassionate, generous, loving, and so on. Make a list of all the qualities you want this companion and lover to have, and then be sure you are demonstrating those qualities yourself! That action will do far more to attract your romance than all the makeovers and dating tips can ever do for you.

Try this with everything in your life that you wish to improve. List the qualities that person with the promotion should have, and make sure you act as if you are already that person. Don’t wait until you get the job, that’s Old Worldview thinking. Demonstrate today that you are the one deserving of the job, and it will be yours. You’ll magnetize it to you, perhaps at a different company, so don’t get discouraged and give up before the results come true.

Have you been studying how to manifest all that you want? Perhaps you have something specific in mind, such as a new car, and you’ve been using the law of attraction processes of imaging that you already have it, holding the feeling of owning and enjoying that car you want, and cultivating an expectation and belief that since you can see it in your mind’s eye, that means it is real in the metaphysical plane and soon will be real in the physical plane.

However, given the fact that everyone I’ve ever met grew up with the advice that “seeing is believing,” it can be a challenge to hold your faith in the new car steady and strong enough for it to actually manifest.

Most of us wish for some kind of sign that it’s on the way, some hint that we’re not doing all this visualizing and affirming to no avail. We’ve been taught to be logical and rational, but the reasoning mind is our enemy when we are in manifestation mode. It looks all around and grumbles, “You’re an idiot falling for that law of attraction stuff—where’s the car?!”

What if you could learn to detect the signs that your manifestation actually is on the way? That would be a big help, wouldn’t it? It would give encouragement, and help you keep going with the process. The worst enemy to our manifestations is doubt, and the fear that somehow this is never going to work, not for us, not in this lifetime.

So let’s look at the signs:

First sign is that you will feel happier! This is a wonderful sign because it shows you are vibrating at a higher level. We have to elevate our frequency to get what we want; otherwise, we continue getting the junk that matched our old, lower energy frequency.

You’ll start seeing that new car, in the color you want, seemingly around every corner as you go about your day. Your connection with that car is now in growing harmony, so that source within you is manipulating your turns and the other driver’s turns, and the events of your day so that you will be in the right place at the exact right moment to see that beloved car. Use these sightings to bolster your visualizations and expectancy. Some people take the opposite tack, and seeing others driving “their” new car evokes feelings of anger and frustration—which, of course, makes their energy vibration take a nose dive off the frequency where the manifestation was humming along.

Another car will be offered to you, or come into your experience, such as a friend asking if he can park his car in your garage while he’s on a business trip. At first, this might seem like a slap in the face and a rejection of your manifestation wish, but it is a sign that you are bringing a car into your life. It’s on the way. This other car arriving at your house is a sign of the change in progress.

Too often, we misread those signs because we were never taught how the process works. What if a friend called and said you could have their old car for five hundred dollars and it’s better than the one you’ve been driving. You might mistake that offer as being a sign you’ll never get that new car, and that you might as well take your friend up on the used car deal.

Metaphysical author and teacher Florence Scovel Shinn tells the story in one of her books about a woman who was trying to manifest a new set of china dishes, and was given a broken plate, which she thought was the answer to her manifesting processes. Shinn explained that it was simply a sign the dishes were on the way, and to bless that broken plate and be grateful for it, to keep the energy frequency high in the final stages of manifestation. Her client followed the advice and soon thereafter was gifted with a beautiful set of china.

When you seek too hard for signs, it can evoke a sense of discouragement. Far better to enjoy the process, enjoy the new feeling of happiness and lightness of being, and simply allow your new car (or dishes or soulmate) to show up in the perfect way and at the perfect time.

I woke myself out of a dream this morning. It was just too darned strange, even for me. In the dream, I had just read the front page – having been mysteriously warned by hints in social media that I would find my name there.

And there it was! “Evelyn Brooks” appeared a few paragraphs into the lead story. It named me along with two other women whom Donald Trump had decided deserved execution.

Our capital crime? We had spoken out against him and refused to retract our statements of derision.

That’s right, in the nation founded on inalienable rights that include Free Speech, I was going to be shot (at dawn, I presume), for calling Trump “an unfit president” in my books, blogs and Tweets.

The Tweet Master was pissed.

Having been married for many years to what I thought was the consummate narcissist until Trump came into my horrified awareness when he was selected by the Republicans as their best bright boy to rule the Free World, I knew about the wrath of a narcissist.

It seemed that Trump was enraged by the remarks of a lowly woman, and an avowed, outspoken Democrat at that.

But… I had a champion (in this dream) – Rodney Dangerfield! My late husband was a big fan of his and we had gone to see Dangerfield in person years ago (obviously when both Rodney and my husband were still alive).

Remember Rodney’s trademark line? “I don’t get no respect!”?

So here I was, my life threatened by the biggest bully on the planet: the 45th POTUS. He has the power to annihilate all of us in one fell swoop, a scene of destruction that would far surpass the most horrific of exploding buildings and flying bodies that any Hollywood SFX team could devise, merely by ramming his Tweeting Thumbs on the Red Button in an idle moment, piqued by outraged vanity.

I can still see my dream hands holding that newspaper as I scanned the article, dreading what I would discover. I was, apparently, being accused of … something heinous … the words swam… the way dreams shift from one seemingly logical moment to the next.

It seemed that my capital crime was rescuing a kitten.

As readers of my books know, I am more of a dog person, but I’m also an animal rights activist.

Where did the kitten come from in my dreaming mind? Last night I watched an old Jimmy Stewart movie called “Magic Town” in which the most adorable charcoal kitten — a ball of fluff wobbling on four legs — stayed the same age throughout the weeks the story represented. Magic, indeed.

We all know a kitten might symbolize innocence, helplessness, inability to defend itself against the world.

Much the way the world feels today in these days of Trump’s reckless presidency. Helpless to stop the bullies who pillage and destroy and taunt the helpless… and who tie cans to the tails of freedom.

Reading the paper, seeing I had been sentenced to death, I was… intrigued. After all, I write about the way we can nullify Trump and his ilk by getting into harmony with all that we desire to manifest, and I didn’t think I was going to manifest defeat at his hands. No way, no how.

In this dream, I knew that the moment I stepped outside my door, it would be a dark glasses moment, with all the world watching. I decided on black diamanté sunglasses and my sweetest LBD. After all, it appeared I was going to a funeral: my own.

The behavior of every tyrant – whether on the world stage or at the kitchen table – is driven by that narcissistic compulsion to be adored and feted and respected, without having to do anything to deserve such fealty, while in turn feeling nothing but contempt for everyone in his sphere.

I knew that Trump was just a man, but he was a man in power, and had decided that I did not have the right to live, and when a tyrant gets an idea he leaps over the process of actually thinking about such piddly things as rights and ramifications, and goes straight into demanding the result he wants: Off with her head!

Narcissists always surround themselves with people who are willing to do their bidding, for their own goals, or deluded by the charming lies a narcissist spins with such ease. Hence the various Puppet Masters who seemingly orbit around Trump’s dark star (they are not the deluded ones). Who are the deluded? The millions of Republican supporters who think it would be a terrific idea to postpone the 2020 elections until they can be positive Trump will be re-elected in the land of the free and the home of the brave.

The stars and stripes in our flag are trembling.

My dream shifted from reading the paper to being in a studio where Dangerfield was on stage. He pointed me out. The crowd yelled in excitement as I stood uncertainly.

But then he beckoned me to join him at the mic, “Come on, young lady.” I was so thrilled at being called a young lady that I flung my arms around him in a huge hug, blessing him for calling me young and whispering my age in his ear.

Rodney morphed into my late husband, who is now a very dear friend of mine since we chat now and then (albeit silently and with no witnesses but my Golden retriever) and have forgiven each other for the unhappiness of our long term marriage. It had started out in the mid-80s with such promise, as loving soul mates, but then deteriorated under the weight of his narcissistic personality disorder.

As the audience cheered, I was no longer in a TV studio. Another of those dream morphs: I was at a massive progressive rally, and I felt the LOVE. I knew that I had nothing to fear… except for fear itself.

I was going to live, to march another day.

And so I woke myself up, and began typing before I even had a piece of chocolate, realizing the friends on my Invisible Writing Team had just handed me a blog in dreamland, and I needed to capture it with digital pen and ink before it faded.

As I was walking Sugar Bear in Central Park before posting this at my site, I also realized the nightmare could have been far, far worse: I could have dreamed I’m a Trump supporter.

In America, we vote for our president every four years, and after the election, the power of that office is transferred non-violently to the incoming President-elect, unless the current administration was re-elected (maximum of two terms).

As stipulated in an amendment to the US Constitution, the President and Vice President are sworn in at noon on January 20th in the year following the election.

Various traditions are upheld on the day of the president’s inauguration. It is always held in our nation’s capital, and takes place outside instead of behind closed doors. Citizens are welcome to witness the ceremony and the informal parade as long as space in the streets permit, and as long as they retain order and self-discipline.

The incoming President, Vice President and their immediate families arrive at the Capitol steps by car, and customarily walk part of the way to wave and interact with the crowds lining the street. On the evening of the swearing in ceremony, inaugural balls are held throughout the city of Washington, D.C.

The ceremony itself is brief, and consists of both the president and the vice president taking a solemn oath, as directed in our Constitution:

Oath of Office for President of the United States

US Constitution, Article II, Section 1

Before he enter on the execution of his office, he shall take the following oath or affirmation: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

The Constitution established the national government and its fundamental laws, while guaranteeing certain basic rights for its citizens, which at that time were the white adult males of the population. The current oath of office was passed by Congress in 1884, changing the wording somewhat, and is the same oath that Members of Congress take.

When we take an oath, it is a special moment.

In times of danger in our society, ordinary citizens can perform an arrest, which, not surprisingly, is called a “citizen’s arrest.” The practice dates back to medieval times and allows citizens to hold a suspected felon even without the official right to do so.

If you’re a fan of classic television comedies you may remember the episode in The Andy Griffith Show where Deputy Barney Fife (Don Knotts) tickets Gomer Pyle (Jim Nabors), and in retaliation Gomer places Barney under citizen’s arrest for making an illegal U-turn. “Citizen’s arrest! Citizen’s arrest!” If you haven’t seen it, the clip is on YouTube and is considered one of the funniest episodes of that long-running series set in small town America.

If we can perform a citizen’s arrest under extraordinary conditions, then why can’t we take a citizen’s oath as well? These are indeed extraordinary, perilous times, when Donald Trump’s election feels more like we’ve landed in The Twilight Zone than Mayberry, RFD.

Are you ready to be one of America’s new breed of freedom fighters? Are you ready to put your commitment into words and turn the weakness of wish power into the boundless “yes, we will” power? Do you want to help create progress, liberty and justice for all?

If so, then please place your right hand over your heart and say these words: “I [your name] do solemnly affirm that I will create more goodness, more love, more joy, more kindness, and more expansion in my own life, and help others do the same.”

My new book America’s New Breed of Freedom Fighters is now available. Thank you for taking this blog journey with me for the past month leading up to the inauguration of Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States.

God bless America—keep us safe from all harm, foreign and domestic.

Are you in? Okay, then put aside the panic, breathe mindfully, and realize this is an incredible opportunity for all of us to “fight” for the freedom and justice we desire.

Forgiveness can feel like we’re being weak, like we’re saying “Oh, yeah, no big deal that Trump played a very dirty game and won even though Hillary had the popular vote.” It can feel like we’re being asked to say it doesn’t matter what Trump and his campaign did to manipulate fear throughout the world, and to rile up rural Americans nostalgic for a trip back in time to the nasty days of white supremacy where “faith” meant believing in a vengeful God and it’s okay to put the Christian injunction to “Love thy neighbor as thyself” on hold while you hate anyone who looks different from you and doesn’t attend the same church.

In an article I read years ago about Dorothy Bridges, the actress and poet who was the wife of Lloyd Bridges and mother of actors Jeff and Beau Bridges, she was quoted as saying that she raised her children to understand if they ever felt a challenge in believing in “God” to simply add another “o” to the word…and believe in “Good.”

We can all understand and relate to “good” and we can state an intention to create more of good and less of its opposite, and to hold our elected officials to the same standard.

We can’t hold grudges and also profess that we are transmitting love in response to hate.

“When they go low, we go high.”– Michelle Obama, First Lady

The process of forgiveness is actually a simple one. It involves letting go of the thoughts and feelings that you have clutched to yourself with rage, anger, resentment, and wishes for vengeance. Wherever you feel those negative emotions, it’s an indication that forgiveness will free you from that slavery to hatred.

Release the anger. Release the desire to get back at the person or organizations who have hurt or upset you. Let go of your grim determination to make someone pay for what they’ve done.

Stop looking in the rearview mirror of life. Instead, free up that energy to create good, harmony, and growth.

Transmuting fear into love is a powerful process. This goes for all issues where there is strife in our lives, not just this election debacle.

When we open to allowing love to flow and goodwill to flourish, we become aligned with the emotional vibrations of joy, peace, bliss, happiness. And in that alignment, we find our true power to create our desired results.

On the other hand, when we hang onto vengeful thoughts or the angry rehashing of events, we stay chained to emotions that, by virtue of the laws of our universe, can only bring us more things to feel angry and resentful and upset about.

Here’s a trick to making forgiveness more palatable: you’re taking the high road, you’re taking a superior position over the “you” who has until now been less aware of your own thought activities. Congratulate yourself on being willing to grow.

Once you gain the forgiveness habit, I think you’ll discover, as I did, that it makes life so much easier and more congenial to let the anger go and focus instead on what you are doing today and how you can be of service to others.

If you feel challenged to forgive and understand friends and family members who voted for Trump, take the important step of making love more important than politics. Calm your breathing, get still within, and ask for help in being a channel for universal love. Remind yourself that in one hundred years, all of us who participated in Election 2016 will be long dead. Don’t allow the anger over the election to spoil the rest of your life, don’t let it harden into bitterness or hatred. Remember always that love trumps hate, because love is of a higher nature than hate and fear and worry.

Send compassion to people who voted for Trump, and realize they followed their own hidden beliefs that are obviously fear-based in nature. They are a dying breed. As our world evolves, and the mental laws are more freely and readily understood, more and more individuals will transition upward into a greater level of awareness. People like Donald Trump will never be allowed near positions of power.

We can let go of them now, without sharing in their narrow Old Worldview of struggle and domination, of control and fear. “When we come to see that Thought is a force —a manifestation of energy —having a magnet-like power of attraction, we will begin to understand the why and wherefore of many things that have heretofore seemed dark to us….When we think we send out vibrations of a fine ethereal substance, which are as real as the vibrations manifesting light, heat, electricity, magnetism.” — William Walker Atkinson

Here is something else to consider about loving others, in spite of their opinions and behavior. When we try to make the other person or group wrong, the natural reaction on their side is to push back and prove that they are right. That clash can quickly escalate into angry shouts (and Tweets).

The higher road is to understand everyone has the right to their own opinion. We can turn away from what we don’t want and pour our mental energy into what we do want to create. It’s amazing how much freer we can feel when we stop pushing against something undesired. Even though at first it may seem the only logical recourse that we have, that isn’t true. We have far more power when we take inspired action for what we want, than when we angrily push against what we dislike or fear.

From adventures to explorers to people seeking greater freedom and prosperity – America has ever sounded the clarion call as the land of opportunities. Let us take full advantage of the freedoms we have: the right to free speech, the right to vote, the right to get a job and be paid for it, the right to create your own business and set your own prices, the right to live where you desire without discrimination, the right to life, the right to due process of law, the right to the pursuit of happiness.

Many rights and freedoms are at risk due to Trump’s election. Get involved now and let’s keep moving forward in service to the greater good.

I’ll get into all of this in greater detail in my new book America’s New Breed of Freedom Fighters—coming on Inauguration Day.

Are you in? Okay, then put aside the panic, breathe mindfully, and realize this is an incredible opportunity for all of us to “fight” for the freedom and justice we desire. More to come in the rest of this blog countdown to Inauguration 2017, and in my new book which will be released that day: America’s New Breed of Freedom Fighters: With Liberty and Justice for All

During World War II, “fifth columnists” were people the Nazis could count on to help Hitler’s gaping maw gulp down yet another village, city, or country. Fifth columnists lived and worked in those towns, usually having been born and raised there. These collaborators secretly worked with the enemy from within the targeted region. The first “four columns” meant the advancing formation of soldiers in four military columns, grimly marching in lock step. So, if you were known as a fifth columnist, it meant you were a traitor to your own country, and you aided and abetted the enemy either for monetary gain, power and favors (such as getting more food and fuel than the average villager), and sometimes because you also believed in the values the enemy proposed.

A collaborator can be seen as someone who is more interested in what they can gain than in what they can do to help their fellow citizens in times of great need. They look for the easy way out, the door to riches and power over others, and they turn their backs on social issues that help their country.

Is any of this beginning to feel familiar about what we face today? As they say, history repeats itself, but the only reason it does is because we continue thinking the same outworn thoughts about struggle and lack and limitation, and we have failed until now to systematically access the power of the subconscious mind to create the results we want.

If we align our thinking with Trump’s hate agenda and get on that low level vibration with him and his cronies, we inadvertently become fifth columnists, helping to undermine and destroy the very freedoms we wish to defend and protect.

During the American Revolutionary War that resulted in the colonists’ breaking away from the rule of King George III of England (and yet eventually becoming Allies and at times BFFs), the colonists who remained loyal to the King were called Tories or Loyalists or Whigs. As a whole, the colonists and American’s eastern shore had considered themselves “Englishmen,” but a big thorn in their side was the lack of representation in Parliament that all Englishmen (meaning white adult males) expected as a God-given right. Trouble kept brewing and boiled over into a battle cry. Further attempts to create harmonious relationships with the implacable King were abandoned in favor of revolution.

It was totally illegal to align yourself with the freedom fighters of 1775-6. Totally. I mean, like, you could be shot for this, because basically the colonies were owned by Great Britain and the King did not look kindly upon an uprising across the pond. I’ll let you discover the details of our fight for independence on your own. I just wanted to be sure to point out that being on General Washington’s side was not your immediate ticket to an easy life of sitting by the fire and toasting a scone while sipping tea from a dainty cup.

It was scary, it was dangerous, it required a firm belief in the high stakes of freedom. And meanwhile, back at the ranch, you had to be careful around your neighbors and villagers who remained loyal to the King.

I have been a bookworm all my life. Before the advent of ebooks, you could always find me near a stack of books bristling with notes, and I still enjoy having several books in progress at any given time. To me, books are comfort food and my first refuge.

When I was growing up, we went to the library on a regular basis and I always came home with an armful of mysteries and historical fiction to dive into. One of my favorite book series was for middle-grade girls involved a heroine who was a Patriot girl about age ten or twelve, and who had a dangerous mission to perform in total secrecy, such as smuggling a crucial message to General Washington. I adored those adventures! At the time, I didn’t even know that I was actually a Daughter of the American Revolution, although not a member. One of my sisters discovered that fact years later when doing a genealogy search about our family history.

Perhaps an angel perched on my shoulder those years ago while I was thrilling to the tale of Patriots, and whispered in my ear: “One day, when you are grown up, you will write a book to help a new kind of freedom fighter in America.”

So let’s see exactly what’s different about being a freedom fighter today compared to being on in World War II or any other great conflict where the stakes were high. We have it easier now, because from the safety of our homes, we can reach the entire world. We don’t have to print pamphlets in a hidden room and risk our lives to distribute them. We just tweet and our message is instantly heard around the world.

Mr. Trump used social media to lambast the globe with hatred and lies and promises of his idea of “greatness.”

Now let’s turn around that mis-use of a wonderful tool and instead of hammering people over the head with hatred, use the “hammer” of justice to promote progress in all areas of our society not just for a favored few.

How can you become one of America’s “new breed” of freedom fighters? Instead of printing a few dozen leaflets in a back room and furtively passing them around, we have the incredible power of instant communication around the world via social media. Let’s use technology in a positive way to share messages of hope and liberation, of freedom and justice.

The new resistance fighter doesn’t needs weapons, doesn’t need to skulk in the shadows. The new activist is someone who sees something going wrong and is willing to help. I think there’s confusion surrounding the idea of peaceful action, or of nonviolent demonstrations. It doesn’t mean you’re weak. It doesn’t mean sitting calmly and letting someone be abusive to you. It does, however, mean learning about the laws of the mind and thus understanding how to activate a sense of indifference toward the rants of people like Donald Trump and his cronies. When we are indifferent to a negative force, it will cease to exist. Our attention to it, our desire to push it away, those feelings and actions just make the negative grow stronger.

What exactly is a new kind of resistance fighter? Using the law of attraction to neutralize Trump’s plans for America, together we can achieve constructive progress instead of being the victim of expensive plans that favor the wealthy and that promote an agenda of hatred for anyone Trump disfavors.

There are so many things you can do to support progress as you go about your daily life. Although it would be wonderful if you felt called to support your favorite issues and get actively involved in supporting those causes, you don’t have to leave your house to help.

Join us in the frequency wavelength of love and expansion that circles our globe. It’s invisible, but it’s there, and all of us can access it by simply inviting in feelings of peace, light, and calmness.

When thoughts pop up that make you feel agitated or fearful, dismiss them as you would a mosquito or gnat. You don’t have to get out a cannon and angrily rant at a gnat, now do you? Of course not.

But when someone like Donald Trump strikes fear into the hearts of so many millions of people around the world, it can feel like only something “big” could possibly combat his agenda of hatred.

Not true. Love trumps hate, and you can start with love in your daily life. By doing so, by adding to the energy of love in the world, you help neutralize the negativity of Trump’s proposed agenda. He cannot win, he cannot dominate, he cannot appoint himself emperor unless we stand back and allow it by energetically aligning with the fear that rules his behavior.

When a classic narcissist such as Donald Trump gets in power, it can be terrifying indeed to listen to the rants, to watch the enraged facial expressions, to hear that fury in his voice.

Pause and put aside your anxiety–listen for the two-year-old in Trump. You’ll hear him, having a tantrum. And you will find it much easier to look away, and to stop inadvertently empowering him by being afraid and letting him call the shots.

It’s odd, but we progressives must essentially act like the loving parent to Donald Trump and set firm limits so he doesn’t destroy all of us with his out-of-control demands for walls, for deportation, for eliminating women’s affordable access to cancer screening and reproductive health care, and so many other issues he intends to stomp beneath his boots.

Perhaps his voters had already decided they would vote Republican no matter who the candidate was, even if they felt distaste when he revealed his opinion that it’s okay to grope women, it’s okay to make racist slurs and it’s okay to deport people based on their religion. They voted for him anyway, even when he bragged he doesn’t have to pay income tax, and even when he refused to make his tax returns public. They had a belief inside that a Republican would be better than a Democrat, and that belief punched the voter ballot.

Some Republicans, of course, voted for Trump because they are racist, they hate women, they don’t want anyone of color to have advantages, they want wealth for themselves and find glee in sticking it to the middle class in as many ways as possible. Their mentality is me-first and ignore the rest of the country.

Other Republicans were unable or unwilling to look past the paid ads and sound bites that glorified Trump as some sort of business wizard who would help the economy. They didn’t look past the glitter and bombast to the man beneath the self-wrought tinsel crown.

Trump enjoys taking hostages. Our trained beliefs—installed by parents, teachers, society we live in – dictate our behavior. If you’re tired of being held hostage by Trump’s constricting definition of who you are and what you are capable of achieving, then activating an understanding of the laws of thought will free you.

Pause for a moment when you feel frustrated about Trump’s supporters and their inexplicable desire for things to revert to what they consider the “good old days.” Think about when you were in high school and played with a small child or sibling. Perhaps you did some babysitting for the neighbors. From your higher perspective about life and relationships and the subjects you were studying at school, you weren’t at the same level as the little children. It didn’t mean you took a superior stance or tried to shame or scold them for their lack of awareness of geometry while they were struggling to handle multiplication.

In a similar vein, it can be liberating to realize that everyone alive at this time is helping humanity move forward. We are ever evolving upward. We are never going backwards even if it sometimes might seem that way.

The people who cling the hardest to old ways actually give motivation and impetus to those of us who are on the leading edge of change. We are the “tip of the arrow” thinkers as some people put it. We are the ones willing to keep pushing for progress.

And we can’t back down. Trump will be in office for 1,461 days. Let’s state our intention now that we will use these four years wisely to gain a firmer stronghold in grassroots community efforts for progress, that we will help get out the vote not just for the presidential election in 2020 but for local and state elections, too.

Together we can and will continue to make a positive difference for our country and our allies.

I’ll get into all of this in greater detail in my new book America’s New Breed of Freedom Fighters—coming on Inauguration Day.

Are you in? Okay, then put aside the panic, breathe mindfully, and realize this is an incredible opportunity for all of us to “fight” for the freedom and justice we desire. More to come in the rest of this blog countdown to Inauguration 2017, and in my new book which will be released that day: America’s New Breed of Freedom Fighters: With Liberty and Justice for All

From this point on, the choice is ours: do we move forward, or do we collectively allow fear to mire us in the mud of inaction? It’s not enough to be “against” what Trump proposes and has already begun putting into effect. We progressives must be for what we want, and use our thought energy in a much more powerful way than we have up until now.

Decide now what you want. Make a list of the issues and principles that are most important to you. Write about the big dream you have for your life, that “thing” that will bring you satisfaction and a sense of a life well-lived. If you don’t have that dream yet, take time to reflect on what you enjoy doing the most. Our hobbies and interests always contain the seed of our greatness. The reason you are drawn to sports, for instance, could be that you have an inner dream of helping others be better athletes by coaching a local team as a volunteer, inventing a new improved fabric for athletic clothes or shoes, or creating a mobile app that allows fans to track their favorite teams.

In my ecourse called “Unstoppable Confidence” I share lessons on how to go deeper into developing healthy self-confidence so that you can achieve both short-term and long-term goals in your life. Here is an excerpt from the course workbook:

Imagine you’ve reached the end of your life and – as a friendly spirit – you’re eavesdropping at your own memorial service. You nod with satisfaction as you hear the recounting of all the good you did during your journey on Earth. There’s even some good-natured ribbing over mistakes you made in a well-meaning way while learning and growing. You laugh along with the listeners as the person at the podium recounts a few anecdotes that really bring your life into full flavor.

ASSIGNMENT: Write your own eulogy NOW!

Rationale

This tool is valuable for identifying the major achievements you most desire to accomplish in your lifetime. It points out the holes where you need to pay more attention to what is important to you, and underscores the values that you hold dear.

Instead of rushing through this with a few quick comments about what a nice person you were and how much you’ll be missed, take time to do this exercise with care. You will find it helpful to use as a visionary document that can be a “map” to guide your action steps from now on.

And, of course, you can keep revising it as the years pass and you accomplish more and more of your big dreams for expressing yourself fully in the world with all of your gifts to humanity such as kindness and caring.

Earl Nightingale is known as the “Dean of Personal Development” because he was not only a popular radio personality, author and speaker on the topics of human character development, he was the first to create home study courses that were recordings. Prior to that time, you could get written course material mailed to you, but no one had thought of preparing and mailing a vinyl record so that students of the course could feel they were in the room with their teacher, and listen to the lesson again and again, thus retraining their thought habits and inculcating the lesson material. He was co-founder of the world-renowned Nightingale Conant personal development company. Nightingale defined success this way: “Success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal or goal.”

Notice the two key words: “progressive” and “worthy.” So let’s put aside any comments that might come to mind about Donald Trump’s seeming financial success which he created with the perverted tactics of an old-style robber baron, and instead focus on how we can progressively move forward with plans that are worthy of fruition and bring value for the greater good of all.

Dr. Joseph Murphy reminds us, “Decide now to make your life grander, greater, richer, and nobler than ever before. Within your subconscious depths lie infinite wisdom, infinite power, and infinite supply of all that is necessary, which is waiting for development and expression. Begin now to recognize these potentialities of your deeper mind, and they will take form in the world without.”

It is only when we really focus on constructive goals that we can be part of the magic of manifesting true progress in our society. The powers of the mind are neutral and therefore can obviously be used to bring about recession, unemployment, and other ills. So let’s keep our attention on creating more good in the world, both for ourselves and our families and for society as a whole.

Murphy goes on to say, “In order to change external conditions, you must change the cause. Most men try to change conditions and circumstances by working with conditions and circumstances. To remove discord, confusion, lack, and limitation, you must remove the cause, and the cause is the way you are using your conscious mind. In other words, the way you are thinking and picturing in your mind. You are living in a fathomless sea of infinite riches. Your subconscious is very sensitive to your thoughts. Your thoughts form the mold or matrix through which the infinite intelligence, wisdom, vital forces, and energies of your subconscious flow.”

Donald Trump and his camp followers manipulated the world with fear and hatred just the way a war general stirs up the populace in favor of aggressive action and restrictions of those who are “different.” Trump targets the female majority of this country with threats of punitive restrictions of access to affordable care and reproductive health screenings. He successfully agitated so much fear in the hearts of listeners that people who were against his plans inadvertently poured the energy of fear into his campaign as if their emotions were attached to a funnel empowering him.

That’s not science fiction, it is science fact. Our thoughts are all connected. We are not Borgs, however; we all have our independent minds. But when we are accustomed to making choices based on reactive emotions, without understanding the power of our thoughts, we create results collectively that we would never wish for if we knew what we were doing.

Think again about your own life, and the direction you are going. Are you advancing, or are you sliding backwards, or are you at a full stop? Are you following your big dream, or just following the money from paycheck to paycheck?

We are all deserving of prosperity in every area of our lives. Wealth isn’t a problem by itself, it’s what people do with the money once they have it, and how they get it in the first place.

If you bring the world a better product or something that is of service and makes money, that’s terrific! Becoming successful with a worthy ideal will bring you satisfaction and a sense of fulfillment along with the abundance and financial freedom.

Just following the money without consideration for your core values and what you are aligning your soul with, may bring you material goods and all that money can buy, but without that satisfaction of living your dream, that type of financial success will not bring you happiness.

Do you want to remain safely on the sidelines and be a bystander for the next four years? Or do you want to take action on behalf of the issues that are most important to you?

It doesn’t mean having to go march on the White House or picket Congress. It doesn’t mean donating money, although of course you are welcome to donate to your favorite organizations such as those supporting environmental protection, feeding the hungry, educating the overlooked.

Did you know that our embarrassingly high illiteracy rate hasn’t improved in many years? 32 million adult Americans cannot read. The last thing this country needs is making education even harder for people to access. But Trump doesn’t care about that—it’s a line budget item he intends to sacrifice to make way for other things such as tax cuts for the super-wealthy.

You can continue to tell yourself things like: I feel so tired all the time, I’m really stressed out, this project (family, house, job, economy) is going to be the death of me!

OR

Start a new trend in your life with self-chat that is far more empowering and delightful such as, I really feel energized by this new project, I feel relaxed and happy, I know that everything is working out for me and I’m right where I planned all along.

Begin today. Choose the commands you give to your subconscious mind, which is the driver on the road of your life.

Affirm: Every day in every way, I advance with confidence in my heart, to help create more good in the world.

I’ll get into all of this in greater detail in my new book America’s New Breed of Freedom Fighters—coming on Inauguration Day.

Are you in? Okay, then put aside the panic, breathe mindfully, and realize this is an incredible opportunity for all of us to “fight” for the freedom and justice we desire. More to come in the rest of this blog countdown to Inauguration 2017, and in my new book which will be released that day: America’s New Breed of Freedom Fighters: With Liberty and Justice for All

We the Peaceful have the opportunity to stretch and grow, to become bigger than we were before, to expand beyond the point in history where we are now, instead of retreating to lick our wounds.

When we access the power of the universe, when we plug into progressive ideals, then our motivation to improve life works with that power the same as plugging a lamp into a socket. We come alive! We light up! We feel joyful and energized.

Let’s imagine future historians are looking back on the aftermath of Election 2016. What will they report? Will they say there were strong ongoing protests to Trump’s agenda and his nominees for the cabinet, and the progressives held him accountable?

Will they say that we never gave up? That we kept moving forward with our dream for all that this great country can be? Will they praise the progressives for refusing to be rattled by the threats of an extremist?

Years ago, in the early days of the Civil Rights movement to gain freedom for people of color in our country, Martin Luther King, Jr., whose birth we celebrate today, commemorated by a national holiday in his honor, delivered a speech on August 28, 1963 in Washington, D.C. as part of a nonviolent march on the capital. The initial title of his speech was “Normalcy, Never Again” but due to his repetitive use of the phrase “I have a dream” that became the name of this, his most famous speech. Dr. King was assassinated less than five years later.

These words are excerpted from Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech:

“In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.”

If we worry that it’s going to be too hard to fight Trump and neutralize his extremist agenda, or that it’s hopeless anyway, so we might as well hunker down and wait out his term, then we are becoming part of the problem in our nation instead of standard-bearers in the realm of solutions.

When we abandon disempowering thoughts, then we create space in our hearts and minds to harness the energy of the universe and use it to manifest the results we want.

Affirm: “I do not resist this situation. I put it in the hands of Infinite Love and Wisdom. Let the Divine idea now come to pass.” Florence Scovel Shinn

I believe in the cardinal virtues of a true statesman:

> Self-control

> Capacity for listening to others and considering new ideas

> Ability to compromise

> At ease with himself

> Deeply spiritual and aware of a power greater than himself

> Desire to be of service to others

> Healthy ego, acts like the parent on an airplane, taking care of his own oxygen need first in order to be of use to his children

> Compassionate and kind

> Self-discipline

> Soft-spoken and well-mannered

> Even-tempered

> Interested in other people’s point of view

At every time in history when oppression reigned there have always been freedom fighters and resistance movements. The weight of fear and the inertia of despair caused prolonging of tyranny, but eventually we as a race always move upward into a higher level of awareness and freedom. The bondage of fear keeps us entrapped. Instead of titling my next screenplay “Nightmare on Pennsylvania Avenue” I’d rather write that dreams do come true when we work together and focus on progress.

Here is the dream I have for our country:

I dream of a nation where our leaders and citizens work together to create greater good for all.

I dream that we the people enjoy and expand our material wealth and enjoy a healthy and vibrant social structure that allows all individuals to prosper and to express their natural gifts.

I dream of a time when everyone lives in peace and harmony, having abandoned the old ideas that we must compete against each other in order to survive and struggle to afford the bare necessities. I dream that all schoolchildren learn how to use the laws of the mind and have ready access to all the support they need from their local communities and states, and at the federal level too, in order to fulfill their destinies and create more love and expansion in our great nation.

Peace in our time? Yes it is possible. If we want it enough, we can create peace. However, it won’t come by decree from outside of us. It starts within, in our own hearts. Releasing your emotional reaction to Trump’s election is the first place to start. Replace it with a sense of calmness and surety that all is working out, and together we will indeed triumph.

“This one simple change—seeking and finding peace within—could, were it undertaken by everyone, end all wars, eliminate conflict, prevent injustice, and bring the world to everlasting peace. There is no other formula necessary, or possible. World peace is a personal thing! What is needed is not a change of circumstance, but a change of consciousness.” Neale Donald Walsch, from The Complete Conversations with God

We fly our nation’s flag at half-staff (some say “half-mast”) as a sign of mourning, such as on Memorial Day in honor of our war dead, on the day before and the day after a member of Congress dies, and by proclamation from the President as well as from the Governors of individual states. The proclamations include the specific days for the flag to be at half-staff, and when the flag should be returned to full-staff, sometimes from sunrise to sunset on the same day and sometimes to be lowered to half-staff and not be returned to full-staff until a week later.

On Wednesday November 11, 2016, the day after the presidential election, I noticed that the American flag atop Belvedere Castle in New York City’s Central Park was flying at half-mast. No doubt it was a “coincidence” and there was an official reason for the signal of grief. But it seemed a providential coincidence indeed.

Over half the voters of America were in deep mourning, shocked and dismayed that our fellow citizens would actually elect a reality TV show host known for his utter disregard for the rights of others to be President of the United States. As a whole, it seems that Trump’s party is deep in anger and they want to spread it around as much as possible. I’ve been attacked (via email and social media) for writing my countdown blog and writing this book. Seriously? You can’t tolerate a writer who is offering stress relief to others?

A signal of dire distress: flying the American flag upside down.

Let us do everything we can to be sure we never need to display that signal.

I’ll get into all of this in greater detail in my new book America’s New Breed of Freedom Fighters—coming on Inauguration Day.

Are you in? Okay, then put aside the panic, breathe mindfully, and realize this is an incredible opportunity for all of us to “fight” for the freedom and justice we desire. More to come in the rest of this blog countdown to Inauguration 2017, and in my new book which will be released that day: America’s New Breed of Freedom Fighters: With Liberty and Justice for All

A paradigm or mindset is a collection of thousands of beliefs we hold hidden in the deep recesses of our minds.

It’s akin to the idea of a complex software program that is installed in our minds in early childhood and continually updates itself with new data and evidence that makes each pattern within the program either stronger or weaker.

For instance, you may have learned at age three from watching a sibling that it is funny to stir all your food together on your dinner plate before eating. For a while, you did it too, until the game wore off or you realized you didn’t like your food mushed together. That’s a simple example of changing one’s mind.

You may also have grown up in a family where there was a lot of sarcasm and belittling, where your ideas and dreams were mocked or discounted, and without knowing you were doing so, you formed a belief that you’re not worthy of joy or love or happiness. But as your life progressed, you got so tired of feeling that way about yourself and you looked around and realized there was information available to help you change your self-image. And you decided to take the task seriously, and steadily move toward your goals. Now, each time you slide back into thinking thoughts of discouragement, you catch yourself and replace that with a feeling of “Yes, I can” gumption.

In my opinion, we greatly need an overhaul of our collective paradigm about the power of our thinking.

While walking through Central Park during the writing of this book, I heard two men on the path behind me talking about Meryl Streep’s speech at the Golden Globes ceremony the previous evening. Golden Globes are awards bestowed by members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. During her acceptance of the Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award, Streep asked the press to hold Mr. Trump accountable now and in the future, citing his well-documented mocking of a disabled news reporter.

Here is part of Meryl Streep’s speech:

“They gave me three seconds to say this, so: An actor’s only job is to enter the lives of people who are different from us, and let you feel what that feels like. And there were many, many, many powerful performances this year that did exactly that. Breathtaking, compassionate work.

But there was one performance this year that stunned me. It sank its hooks in my heart. Not because it was good; there was nothing good about it. But it was effective and it did its job. It made its intended audience laugh, and show their teeth. It was that moment when the person asking to sit in the most respected seat in our country imitated a disabled reporter. Someone he outranked in privilege, power and the capacity to fight back. It kind of broke my heart when I saw it, and I still can’t get it out of my head, because it wasn’t in a movie. It was real life. And this instinct to humiliate, when it’s modeled by someone in the public platform, by someone powerful, it filters down into everybody’s life, because it kind of gives permission for other people to do the same thing. Disrespect invites disrespect, violence incites violence. And when the powerful use their position to bully others we all lose. O.K., go on with it. [She was being prompted to speed up.]

“O.K., this brings me to the press. We need the principled press to hold power to account, to call him [Trump] on the carpet for every outrage. That’s why our founders enshrined the press and its freedoms in the Constitution.”

Now, let’s go back to the two men talking behind me in Central Park. What drew my attention to their conversation is that I heard one of them say, “Okay, so he played a dirty game and he won but now he’s the president and Meryl Streep had no business mocking him.”

In other words, now that Trump has won, we are supposed to accept whatever he does because he is the president, and if you hold up his behavior to the light, you are the one doing the mocking?

The words that man spoke reveal his paradigm: he believes that being president gives Trump a free pass to do and say what he wants, and it is unreasonable to hold him accountable.

What can we do about such thinking? We can’t force people to change. Change has to come from within each of us in order to be real change and not just a surface compliance with what someone more powerful than you has decreed.

No one can think our thoughts for us.

No one can feel our feelings for us.

No one can create the pictures in our minds for us.

No one can take our actions for us.

But we can be pushed and goaded—and if we haven’t learned to disconnect those buttons and are hot-wired to react, then that other person does indeed call the shots.

Want to be a free agent instead of a puppet on a string? Learn more about using the law of attraction in your life. Understanding is the key to lasting, beneficial change in our lives.

For change to be effective, each individual must want to experience better results in life than what they now realize is their limiting set of beliefs about their abilities and self-worth, and they must be willing to try new things and open up to new ideas.

When someone tries to force change on any of us, no matter how well-meaning, we always resist. Think about all the times your parents scolded you to stop being messy or to change a certain habit they labeled as bad—didn’t you dig in your heels and become more determined than ever to hold onto the behavior or belief that was seemingly under attack?

Let’s not waste energy on trying to change other people’s minds and opinions. We’ve got more than enough work to do in mastering the laws of the universe so that we can attract the greater good we progressives desire for our country, even with a misogynist and racist in the White House.

Charles Haanel (1866-1949) was a New Thought teacher whose books remain popular today with those studying personal development. Below are eight lessons that Haanel offered as part of his “Master Key System” to help us better comprehend the universe we live in and the mental power we all are born with.

That much gathers more is true on every plane of existence and that loss leads to greater loss is equally true.

Mind is creative, and conditions, environment and all experiences in life are the result of our habitual or predominant mental attitude.

The attitude of mind necessarily depends upon what we think. Therefore, the secret of all power, all achievement and all possession depends upon our method of thinking.

This is true because we must “be” before we can “do,” and we can “do” only to the extent which we “are,” and what we “are” depends upon what we “think.”

We cannot express powers that we do not possess. The only way by which we may secure possession of power is to become conscious of power, and we can never become conscious of power until we learn that all power is from within.

There is a world within a world of thought and feeling and power; of light and life and beauty and, although invisible, its forces are mighty.

The world within is governed by mind. When we discover this world we shall find the solution for every problem, the cause for every effect; and since the world within is subject to our control, all laws of power and possession are also within our control.

The world without is a reflection of the world within. What appears without is what has been found within. In the world within may be found infinite Wisdom, infinite Power, and infinite Supply of all that is necessary, waiting for unfoldment, development and expression. If we recognize these potentialities in the world within they will take form in the world without.

Once we learn that there are specific rules that control the results we live with each day, then we gain access to the power of creating more joy, freedom, justice and prosperity for all.

I’ll get into all of this in greater detail in my new book America’s New Breed of Freedom Fighters—coming on Inauguration Day.

Are you in? Okay, then put aside the panic, breathe mindfully, and realize this is an incredible opportunity for all of us to “fight” for the freedom and justice we desire. More to come in the rest of this blog countdown to Inauguration 2017, and in my new book which will be released that day: America’s New Breed of Freedom Fighters: With Liberty and Justice for All

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